Fresh Face

Hello, Steve here adding to the blog for the first time.

I arrived 2 days ago from home on three flights which all went smoothly until the end.

After the 1 1/2 hour flight of the last leg from Guayaquil, the approach seemed a bit lumpy and the pilot then soared away to go round for another go, This happened twice more after which he turned around and went back to the start. Information was scarce, but we gathered in the end that we were refuelling and going back to try again.  All communications were meant to be off during refuelling so apologies for the lack of information to anyone following my progress.

Second attempt was fine and I was met by Rob who told me that everywhere had been under water at the time of the first attempts and they had not actually seen the plane at all, just heard the attempts. 

Rob and Jo and in fine form and, of course, very welcoming. I find I have a reputation to live up to as a bringer of fair winds that avoid the need for tacking. I have perhaps 4,000 sea miles in my history and only one (at most) tack in the lot of it.

The Galapagos are both similar and different to what I was expecting. The town of San Cristobel, where I landed, would remind you of a small, low key, slightly touristy, Mediterranean coastal town. 

The other areas, though, are exactly what one would expect. There is wildlife everywhere.  Virtually no mammals, but vast quantities and varieties of birds, fish and others. 

The group though is much larger than I had expected. The island where we are now, Isabella, is the largest and is 100 Km from North to South. I am informed that only 0.01% of the total area is accessible to tourists.

Yesterday we had a trip further along the island for a walk, beach swim and snorkelling. A hard life indeed. The snorkelling was particularly special. At a place called Kicker Rock fish were evident in their droves, like a huge aquarium. This was combined with sightings of sharks (not aggressive or hungry), turtles and sea lions. 

I should say that sea lions are everywhere. They will come and plonk themselves on any comfortable surface they can get on. You can't leave a dinghy tied to your boat; it will end up swamped with them.

The distinguishing feature of the wildlife seems to me to be that it just ignores you.  It isn't scared of you, but neither does it come up to you for food. It might land on something you bring, as with the sea lions, but then you have to be persistently noisy male yourself known to them to shift them off.

We travelled overnight, mostly motoring, to our current location in Isla Isabella and the morning is being occupied by catching up on sleep and similar activities.

Steve has joined the crew

It is brilliant to have Steve with us on board. His journey from Dalston to Galapagos via Colombia and Ecuador mainland took a few hours longer than planned due to the torrential downpour here on San Cristobal this afternoon.

His plane made 3 attempts to land but pulled up each time due to poor visibility ( there are no lights at this airport), turned around and returned to Ecuador.

After refuelling there the pilot tried again later in the afternoon, with success.

So here he is in the cockpit with a cup of tea...and Rob. We are set.

Exploring San Cristobal

We had the chance to get up close and personal with the giant tortoises of San Cristobal today. They can live to 170 years old...
Swimming off a beach we didn't appear put the blue boobies off their stride. They were diving like gannets for fish right next to us.
An insect eating finch showed us his catch for lunch.

Galapagos Arrival

San Christobal, Galapagos

We dropped anchor in Wreck Bay, San Cristobal, early yesterday morning.  During our final approach, as the shapes of the hills became clearer in the early dawn, we could smell the island. A warm and earthy, almost orangey sweet smell.

We picked out the light marking Five finger rock, turned to port and crept into the bay. It was so still and calm. Anchor down and it held firmly first time. Rob said  “Welcome to Galapagos, Jo!” and it was an amazing feeling. Tintin has brought is safely and happily over many thousands of miles to this incredible place on the earth. 

Sailing just the 2 of us over the previous 6 days had been a new venture. There were no difficult conditions for us to manage on our maiden 2-up voyage. We divided the night into four 3 hour watches and used the day to catch up with sleep if needed, and usually by the afternoon we would both be up and about. Occasionally we would need to wake each other mid watch to help with sail changes, but not often. It worked well, but I’m glad that we will be three on board for the next stage, which is longer than our Atlantic crossing.

Having been led in to port by a booby flying just in front of us, the next welcome was from a lithe sea lion who jumped up onto the steps at the stern just after we anchored. He gave us a look as if to say,” aren’t you going to welcome me on board?” before thinking again and slipping back into the water.

We weren’t allowed ashore until Tintin had been inspected by the authorities. How many people do you think were involved?

15

A dive boat with 3 on board came by first to inspect and take photos of the underwater part of the hull. No barnacles found - all good.

Next a heavily laden water taxi boat with the Galapagos agent Antonio and 11 others on board.

11 trooped on board with as many clipboards with forms to complete.

They checked our fresh food and removed some cheese that was past its sell by date, askEd if we had any beef on board, asked to see some pasta and checked the sell by date on that!

They checked our flares and life jackets, and our first aid kit looking at the expiry date of any medication.

Antonio the agent liked the name of Tintin. He said you should play that music that goes Tintin Tintin, Tintin Tintin ...and hummed ( can you guess the tune?) Carmine Burana! So we played it loudly for him and he beamed.

Many questions later (and even more signatures), we were deemed to have passed and they all trooped off to the next boat awaiting its check.

Today, the final ARC boat has arrived safely in. The community of sailors are getting to know each other better and better and there is a lot of care and concern for each other, so it is a cause to celebrate when we are all gathered again after a leg of the voyage.

After a wonderfully unbroken long night of sleep last night, we have started to explore the island.

Galalagos by moonlight

It's 5:00am and we're motoring down the N side of San Cristobel in the
Galapagos. The moon is amazingly bright - almost full - and the sky
completely clear. The ecliptic here stretches from east to west
diectly overhead. Venus has just risen above the shadow of the
horizon, a couple of hours after Jupiter.

Kicker Rock, a rocky outcrop about 100m and 200m across and teeming
with wildlife is a mile to port. We'll probably arrange a day diving or
snorkelling here before we leave.

The favourble current has faltered over the last few hours, so we'll
probably be anchoring in Wreck Bay as the sun rises. Pretty Cool!

Hitch-hiking on the equatorial current

It's sunrise over my left shoulder and the moon is gently coming down
to set in front of my right. We have had the most amazing and
unexpected last 14 hours of sailing with steady winds of 10-12 knots
from just west of south. Tintin is creaming along close hauled in
flat waters making 7-8 knots over the ground thanks to the 2 knot
westbound current.

We will need to alter course if the wind doesn't change - even tack -
to make the Galapagos, 140 miles to landfall. Before then we will be
crossing the equator!

It has been a glorious moonlit night with much friendlier clouds than
the night before, and lightening visible in the far distance only. Maybe
we are through the ITCZ (Doldrums) now?

A red footed booby who had been perched on our mast spreader for
several hours has just preened himself and flown off into the dawn.

Dodging lightening in the doldrums

It is 6:15 am but it is still jet black outside, apart from the
occasional flashes of lightening which are lighting up the whole sky.
They are coming from a huge thunderstorm cloud to our right which is
clearly visible on the radar screen and appears to be a couple of
miles wide. Using the radar we have managed to find our way through the
squall clouds over the last couple of hours and it is quite
reassuring to see the dark blobs on the screen moving behind us as we
put more distance between them and us. It is raining and the decks have
had a good rinse; the wind freshened a few hours ago and has veered 180
degrees in the last half hour, and Tintin's motion is a bit more rocky
than it has been for days in the lumpy seas produced by the squall.

Yesterday evening we were treated to a beautiful calm sunset, with two
shearwater seabirds flying in perfect formation around us for almost an
hour. We saw a couple of anvil topped towering clouds in the
distance and wondered if we might encounter our first doldrum squalls
soon.

After the sun had gone down, out of nowhere we suddenly found ourselves
passing through a band of drifting branches and logs, coconuts and a
small amount of rubbish. Rob went to the bow to point out the
ones to miss... Looking around it was clear that the currents of the
ocean were at work - the water looked smooth in some places and
ruffled in others (with no wind to speak of). Maybe it was some sort of
eddy produced between the south equatorial current (taking us west)and
the eastbound equatorial counter current to the north. It is easy to
see how a tortoise might have made it from the mainland to the
Galapagos Islands all those years ago, clinging to a log. What tenacity!